What does a criminal deportee have to do with a family seeking asylum, or an undocumented migrant or a Muslim post-9/11 detainee? In the expanded security system that deals with crime, immigration, asylum, borders and migration, all these people are treated as threats to national security. This same system disproportionately punishes noncitizens. If they commit a crime, they not only serve the sentence but then are exiled for life from the country. Any mistake becomes cause for detention and deportation, the loss of livelihoods and uprooting of families. Race, religion and national origin all dictate the terms upon which a person or a community is deemed suspect, monitored and regulated.

Within suspect communities, the profiling and policing done in the name of anti-terrorism or immigration enforcement leads to remarkably similar results as the policing and imprisonment that African-American communities have faced under the war on drugs. These policies have turned up scant terrorism leads, no arrests related to the September 11 attacks and instead have netted thousands of people mostly for administrative violations and petty crime.

The post-9/11 crisis was but one part of a continuum of conflict surrounding communities targeted by the war on terror at home. Most crucial in overcoming the discriminatory policies of the war on terror is exposing the implicit question in the phrases "national security" or "homeland security." That question is: "security for whom?" Thus far the answer has not included communities of color.

Excerpted from We Are All Suspects Now: Untold Stories from Immigrant Communities After 9/11 by Tram Nguyen